


Uroboros

by heartstone



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M, Mairon just goes along with it, Melkor is Philosophizing, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:35:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24040666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstone/pseuds/heartstone
Summary: His beloved was the only one who had never confused his coyness with submission; prey was not really prey if it desired to be consumed.***Melkor worships his muse.
Relationships: Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 5
Kudos: 45





	Uroboros

“All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.”

(Oscar Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray)

***

The breeze, silver-cold as the moon, languidly fluttered the gossamer studio-curtains into a sheen of many small ripples, bringing with its meandering currents the myriad sounds of the guests below. Their individual meaning seemed to melt into a muffled harmony of discordant notes: voices vying to be heard over laughter which pealed like bells and drums over the instruments and the clink of the champagne-glasses. It was a pleasant scene for such a midsummer night— the humidity a most excellent excuse for indolence, the season permissive of any kind of celebration, the teasing breeze with its bouquet of tea-roses a kind of philter. The studio’s distance from all the liveliness of the party was a kind of intimate detachment that the hosts rarely tired of.

Mairon trembled at once from the echo of the people below and the play of the cool air on his warm skin, and from the regard of the dark figure from behind the wood-backing of a large canvas. The hem of the curtain lazily trailing along the parquet and the swirl of a brush in mineral spirit both seemed impossibly immediate to his senses. He let a sigh slip from his parted lips, his fair eyelashes shading the light of many candles into a glow of ambient warmth— he tried to remember to be still, but it was difficult when he could feel the honey-gaze of his espoused imparting such intense consideration to the curve of his waist or the how the gentle slope of his neck was _just so._

The brush fell idly against the lip of the glass jar. He looked up at Melkor from his recline on the divan as he made his way around the canvas, gripping the golden dragon-head of his cane in pale hands, tapping suspenseful such that it sent a careful rhythm of shivers along Mairon’s nude form. He arched upwards mischievously, allowing the crackling effervescence of his nerves to shimmer along as Melkor watched avidly the affect of his gaze: the small quiver of full lips and the momentary flick of a tongue to wet them, the peak of nipples so responsive to his intangible attentions, the way the sculpted muscles of his legs flexed under satin to point his toes. It was all as if to distract the body’s sudden powerful longing to part trembling thighs instead.

The corners of Melkor’s mouth turned upwards— he was never quite so expressive, save with the velvet-dark of his eyes which contained, somehow, the paradoxical force of his strength and sensitivity that wasn’t kept effortlessly in his imposing figure and elegant motion. Mairon met his terrible gaze fully with the challenging enigma of his own, biting his lip and presenting himself as the most sinful of temptations. His beloved was the only one who had never confused his coyness with submission; prey was not really prey if it desired to be consumed.

“I think I am done painting tonight,” Melkor murmured, following Mairon’s hand as it trailed from his navel to his breast, the point of his sharp gold nails leaving a pale impression on the bronze of his skin.

He dropped his cane to the floor just as a raucous cheer floated up through the open doors and curled the curtains. Melkor sat on the edge of the divan, leaning over his betrothed like some sensual mockery of a fairytale prince to kiss the lure of not-so-chaste lips. Mairon smiled fiendishly as the other man pulled away slightly to bite and suck the silvery lace of the choker-scar about his neck.

He hummed at the nibbling, at the tongue that girdled the flesh drawn into a hot mouth. “Mmm, seems like every night the painting session gets shorter and shorter to make time for other—“ he squeaked, rather unflatteringly, he thought, at the harsh nip that was already leaving a faint bruise even on his darker skin. Melkor chuckled rich and deep at his dour expression but Mairon wasn’t deterred so easily. Low and husky, his voice quickly regained his grace:

“One act of possession for another, is it?”

Melkor’s eyes sharpened, as if propounding his narrowing focus with a shine like a dagger drawn in the black night, unsheathed with a cold metallic laceration. He leaned down again to kiss delicately Mairon’s jaw, then along the quiver of his Adam’s apple, then to the cradled shadow that fell in the dip of his manubrium, the salt-sheen of his fevered skin a luxury on his lavishing tongue.

“Yes,” he agreed, casual acknowledgment of his indulgence of others’ fearful _sin._ He continued, pausing so often to work his mouth along the lovely firmness of muscle that jumped at his breath.

“But it is a possession of not only of the muse: the artist as well. Consumed with his worship, possessed by his living inspiration in all respects. His is such a wearisome task, to draw his vision whole from the untidiness of the heart. It is an entanglement of perception and reality, both of which he is beholden to stay true…”

Mairon giggled— Melkor's lips were following the severe V of his hipbone down toward the widening avenue between his legs as he kneeled now between them, and the raven-black of his untamable hair tickled his reclining form as it fell from the struggling hairpin. Mairon brought his hands down to those messy locks, slipping the metal clasp from the tangle so that the wild fall framed alluringly Melkor's ivory face.

“His vision?” Mairon gasped, always breathtaken by his feral beauty, the storm behind his eyes, the slight swell of his skillful lips after a little bit of exquisite labour. 

“Yes,” he replied slyly, using his fingertip now to follow the same path Mairon’s own had some moments ago. He stopped at a nipple and circled it delicately. “To create successful art is to infuse it with the soul, to evoke one’s vision not only in technical skill, but with the agonies of every brushstroke.”

His fingers pinched and played rather frustratingly with the sensitive bud, and Mairon was dappled now with a vibrant rosiness as of fallen pink petals, his skin still sticky not so much now from the lingering humidity. _It will storm soon,_ he thought, inhaling petrichor and faint ozone from the breeze which carried also the sound of the party that seemed rather more distant now. His legs braced either side of Melkor’s broad shoulders and chest— still unfortunately overdressed for the occasion. He was very near to brushing against the fabric, and he canted his hips to meet the soft silk only to have Melkor pull away slightly, twisting the aching flesh of his nipple between a thumb and a forefinger. Mairon whined, his own fingers twined into the ends of his beloved’s hair.

“It is such a delightful torture,” Melkor continued. “We slaves of our muses. Yet, in such torture, the muse is no longer only the muse, but the muse transformed through the medium onto the canvas.”

Mairon moaned through his closed lips, as if he could stifle such a sound. Melkor continued to evade his greedy hips.

“Ever will the artist tire of the torture?” he asked, breathless at the hands that caressed him.

 _“Never.”_ Melkor’s voice was adamantine and Mairon cried out at the throb that resonating voice sent through him to the very bone. “The release, the profound elation at successfully translating one’s vision into the material— it is worth every agony, in the end.” He squirmed under his imposing form, Mairon's voice singing the most primal of praises.

“But the canvas is static, dead even with the vivid illusions of the paint,” Melkor continued, kissing and biting the inside of his love's thighs now, and Mairon’s head tipped back over the bolster, hands and nails buried against his espoused’s scalp, encouraging him if nothing else but to continue, to punctuate his pious sermon with that of a choir.

“My muse, my muse is living,” Melkor whispered fervently. “How can I stay away when he is alive right in front of me, so passionate and separate from my own delusions?”

Mairon locked his legs over Melkor’s shoulders. His breath was laboured, the rise-and-fall conflicted in the cold breeze and humid air filled with all the sweetest of fragrances. It was difficult to speak:

“You will transform your muse, then, so that you may both change together, be consumed by one another?”

Melkor smiled, his eyes glimmering darkly.

“Yes,” he replied, letting his breath roll over the few glistening beads of moisture from Mairon’s arousal, cooling the heat of his flesh in the most delicious of tortures.

“The muse and the artist inspired anew, recalling why it was they desired to make immortal their agonies.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a more concise reflection on some of the things I was thinking about in my other work, "On the Memory of Light."  
> I hope you enjoyed.  
> ***


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